Bring me sunshine
I didn't miss the Eclipse today.
You can only miss something if you are aiming for it, and frankly my aim was to get a grand night's sleep. I did achieve that and by the time I was up at a respectable hour, the world had reverted to its normal level of insanity.
I had to laugh at all the dire warnings over the last few days about not looking directly at the sun. I know from past experience that even an accidental micro-second glance at the sun can cause instant and severe discomfort and will naturally force the looker to look away and close their eyes. It's a built in instinctive thing provided by nature designed to protect the eyes, so anyone who disobeys their instinct and burns the fuck out of their retinas is frankly asking for it.
Even better, I saw a warning last night from our esteemed police force begging drivers not ot look at the sun while driving. Now that would be piling madness on top of insanity, and anyone who tried it would deserve to end up mangled in a ditch, and get a headline mention in the Darwin Awards.
I almost remember that last eclipse we had back in nineteen ninety something. I only barely remember it as a fleeting memory of walking behind the Radio Centre in RTE, heading towards the Fair City Lot [a mangled mess of scenery used for filming a soap opera]. What sticks in my mind is the image of a bunch of staff standing in the gloom and staring skywards through welder's masks. It was a surreal site.
Eclipses are mildly interesting but that's about it. They happen and then they're gone until the next one. Unless you're an astronomer who specialises in the Sun's Corona then I'm not sure what the fuss is all about. There is a disk, and then there's a disk with a bit missing and then there's a disk again. what's far more interesting is the weird gloom that spreads across the place. It annoys the hell out of wildlife who haven't a clue whether to go back to bed or not.
The Interweb is now awash with photographs of the crescent Sun, and only differ in their degrees of crescentness. There is nothing to stop me robbing one of those and claiming it for my own as they are all essentially identical to the magnificent photograph which I didn't bother taking.
Personally I prefer Lunar Eclipses.
They're less hysterical.
And at least I can watch them without resorting to a welder's mask.
I lkoode driectyl twoards teh snu nad anc cnofrim it dindt do m ayn hram at lal!
Um, yes…. I think what you might have been looking at were heavy rain clouds. I can tell because your comment is wringing wet and all the letters have run.
Ha! asked for that. Still, i'll have you know it was like the Med down here this mornin'. Herself was even suggesting deckchairs, gawd!
It wasn't too bad here either though it has clouded since. More than likely heading your way in a few months! 😀
I like eclipes, its a nice break from the unrelenting sun and heat, its been a long hot and very dry summer here in my far flung corner of Aus. What I'd really love is to be able to swap weather, I'd be more than happy for you to take some of this horrendous sunshine off our hands, and we could certainly use some of your rain. Perhaps some form of large area teleporting, sigh, back to the shed.
Good God!!! Too much sun? We consider it a blistering heatwave here if we get two sunny days in succession. I'll swap any time. I wonder what the postage would cost?
Global warming is causing the moon to expand making solar eclipses more common. this ultimately makes the glaciers and or ice caps melt and kills polar bears. It will be the end of everything unless we give all of our money to our political leaders who are obviously much smarter then we are.
P.S. I almost deleted the above post because I know someone will believe it, then I realize there is no hope for such a person anyway.
Recent global warming research has shown that politicians are actually prone to 'brain shrink' – something to do with heads in clouds I believe. 😉
I did wonder if Supershadow had some ulterior explanation for the eclipse. Some kind of intergalactic warning?
I vaguely recall the time when I was taking a weekend road trip on my old '85 Harley when the sun slowly disappeared. One hell of a weird sensation that was. I was just passing some city or another and everything started to turn red and then night fell–sort of. I didn't bother to stop, I just turned on my headlight and went on and the day eventually came back. I didn't even know an eclipse was supposed to happen but even way back then I never bothered with having a TV hook up. I couldn't be bothered with minor things like local and world events.
Still, it was a hell of an experience.
Forgot to check the damn box again. Will I ever learn?